Top Democrats are firing back at President Donald Trump for criticizing Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) over her horrifying comments entirely rewriting the history of Israel, by calling on Trump to apologize for “misrepresenting” Tlaib’s comments.
Trump tweeted at Tlaib on Monday, taking her to task for claiming that her ancestors had given up their land to accommodate and shelter Jews fleeing the Holocaust, saying that their sacrifice gives her a sense of “peace” and justifies her crusade to end the Jewish “occupation” of Palestinian land.
“There’s kind of a calming feeling I always tell folks when I think of the Holocaust, and the tragedy of the Holocaust, and the fact that it was my ancestors, Palestinians, who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity, their existence in many ways, have been wiped out, and some people’s passports,” Tlaib said on the Yahoo podcast, “Skullduggery.”
“I mean, just all of it was in the name of trying to create a safe haven for Jews, post-the Holocaust, post-the tragedy and horrific persecution of Jews across the world at that time,” she added.
In reality, Jews have existed in what is now modern Israel for thousands of years and were not “given” land by others already living there at the time. Worse, the Palestinian Grand Mufti at the time, Muhammad Amin al-Husayni, was an ally of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany and an admirer of the Nazi “final solution.” Jews fleeing to their homeland from Nazi-occupied territory faced dramatic and often violent opposition from Palestinians, and more than 400 Jewish refugees — some of whom were Holocaust survivors — were killed while attempting to make their home in Israel.
Tlaib’s statements aren’t simply anti-Semitic, they’re a re-imagination of history designed to erase the Jewish claim to Israel as a homeland.
“Democrat Rep. Tlaib is being slammed for her horrible and highly insensitive statement on the Holocaust,” Trump tweeted. “She obviously has tremendous hatred of Israel and the Jewish people.”
Democratic leaders Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) rushed to Tlaib’s defense.
“If you read Rep. @RashidaTlaib’s comments, it is clear that President Trump and Congressional Republicans are taking them out of context,” Hoyer tweeted late Monday. “They must stop, and they owe her an apology.”
He later added, in an interview with The Hill, that he’d read and understood Tlaib’s comments differently from the president.
“If you read Rep. Tlaib’s comments, it is clear that President Trump and Congressional Republicans are taking them out of context,” Hoyer said. “They must stop, and they owe her an apology.”
Pelosi added her own commentary Monday evening, as well, demanding that Republicans recant their “gross misrepresentations” of Tlaib’s comments.
“Republicans’ desperate attempts to smear @RepRashida & misrepresent her comments are outrageous. President @realDonaldTrump & House GOP should apologize to Rep. Tlaib & the American people for their gross misrepresentations,” the Speaker said on Twitter.
Presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, (I-VT) tossed in his own two cents Monday as well, calling attacks on Tlaib “ugly,” but failing to condemn Tlaib’s own ugly attacks on the Jewish people: “Mr. President: Stop dividing the American people up by their religion, their race or their country of origin–and stop your ugly attacks against Muslim women in Congress. You are taking Rep. @RashidaTlaib’s comments out of context and should apologize.”
Tlaib, of course, fired back in her own defense, accusing Republicans of “twisting her words.”
“Policing my words, twisting & turning them to ignite vile attacks on me will not work,” she said. “All of you who are trying to silence me will fail miserably. I will never allow you to take my words out of context to push your racist and hateful agenda. The truth will always win,” she tweeted.